Well, I think Baron Blade is a little boring. I mean, he's not bad and all - but he lacks that "Oh crap I'm scared what is going to happen next!" type-feeling. I think Voss would be perfect. Does he have a lot of minions? Minions are just plain fun.
Aliens in the Wild West, aliens and dinosaurs, or aliens and monsters? I think I'll let my buddies pick that one.
Sure he's not the most exciting, but he's perfect for a training game. Don't make the mistake of hitting brand new players with hard villains right away, unless you want the risk of putting them off the game before they even understand it.
Those tend to be my methods too, but I can't help but remember a friend who had his three starting games against Citizen Dawn. Two crushing defeats. One brilliant victory.
I have no idea how he had the patience to trudge through those first two games, but he was so fond of the game he bought the Enhanced Edition about a week later. It was pretty awesome.
Who knows? Some gamers really enjoy a good stomping in their first games. I'm not one of them, granted, but I play with a few!
I totally get that! If I get my butt kicked I know I can get better and there will always be a challenge. If it's too easy to begin with then that's no fun for me.
Had the Munchkin not been such a spitfire the last few days, my intro game for people would have been having folks choose heroes from the Freedom Five + Unity (almost all of whom are straightforward and easy to grok, with AZ and Unity being the exception) against Amubuscade, in Insula Primalis.
One reason I love Voss for first games is he throws those minions at you and makes you deal with them. When we lose to Voss it always fels like you were just a few cards from turning it atound, and you never really steamroll him.
You also get to set up your heroes, so it is nice for getting a feel of what they are possible of doing.
The Block is another good starter, like Gulch it will often just fight amongst itself, but sometimes you suddenly realize you are about to get crushed
Blade seem too easy? Try these house rules:
Reduce the number of cards in his trash needed for his plan to work. 15 is a lot! Try 12. or 10.
Start w/ more than one of his mobile defense platforms in play.
Take out all of the Blade Battalions and make a side deck. Put a Blade Battalion in play at the start of Blade's turn.
Give blade more hit points. 40/30 seem too easy? How about 50/50?
If you're not worried about yourself, but just want others to enjoy their first game, stack the deck. Put in some Hasten Dooms and Consider the Price of Victory towards the top.
If Blade is too easy, Advanced Blade makes for a very nice balanced encounter!
I'd also say to play Blade in the black abyss of defeat that is the Rook City environment, but I'm not sure you have that one.
Advanced Blade in Rook City is pretty brutal. Always a fun one.
Advanced Blade in Atlantis can also suck since both the Font and Pillars give him extra card plays.
This is my feeling on it; BB is the one I always break out to newcomers because I feel he offers the most well rounded, basic, introduction to the game both thematically and mechanically. He shows off the game's comic book theme probably the best out of the base villains (an evil genius, using ridiculously advanced inventions to destroy the planet for basically no reason? Sounds like a comic book villain!) and does plenty to get players into what the villains can offer. He has an alternate win scenario, his flipside is different enough to show off how villains change throughout the game, and he has plenty of surprises in his deck that can bring new players to thier knees.
Great! Now I can't make up my mind!
What I like about Voss is that he has a ton of minions. However, when I looked through his deck (I haven't played him yet so maybe I missed it) it seems like that's ALL he's got. Like there's little to no actual slugging it out with Voss himself. I mean, he looks really tough and all, like a Darkseid, but no melee action? What? A guy this bad should be throwing some punches!
I love the theme of Blade, and he seems to have more variety than Voss in that he has minions, devices, and even shields. And the idea that he flips and gets a whole new set of hit points is great. But I've already played him twice and would like to try someone else. Maybe.
I'm also contemplating going with Ambuscade. He has devices, a cool theme, a cool flip, gets in the thick of it with some melee, doesn't look too hard or too easy, and would fit great in Insula Primis. What do you guys think of him?
SuperRick, take a look at Voss's flip side. He's all about punching the heroes! Voss is one of my favorite villains to fight overall.
Even though it makes for a more difficult fight than Blade (usually), I find that I like starting newbies against Omnitron. He has a lot of targets and a really varied deck that makes you think outside the box as to how to take him down.
Oh, whoops.
Ooooh trust me. when you play Voss, you will really end up throwing some punches. Generally, you want to get rid of all the minions to get rid of his armor (-2 per minion is pretty painful, even if it is just one minion at that time) and on his flip side, he punches two people, not just one. So there.
Try Mad Bomber Blade! Always an exciting game. Alternately, advanced Blade. Hate that guy.
Voss attacks you on the second side, but mostly he hangs back behind his minions and sacrifices them, then brings in more to sacrifice them as well.
You get a good feel of having to slog through his troops to get to him.
Ambuscade sometimes works really well, when he's getting his cards that play more cards a bunch, but mostly he throws his initial cards at you and once you clear it he's a cake walk. He feels to me like the least competetive villain. Even house ruling him to be more difficult hasn't brought him up to where I really fear him.
Voss's front side, thematically, is him as a general of an army leading from the back and sending his invasion army at you.
When you clear out his minions, he feels compelled to come get the job done himself and starts fighting you face to face.
Minions are his thing, thats basically what he does you are right. But after you run into your first late game Forced Deployment with no way to counter it, you'll understand why there are so many of them.
If you are looking for a fun, minion-centric time, I'd defintely go with Voss. He's a perennial favorite among my friends. One of my favorite things about him is that he doesn't tend to destroy your stuff (he has one ship that can destroy stuff, but thats it), so its very rewarding for setup intensive characters. Its also rewarding for controllers, tanks, and damage dealers!
A few things to note when fighting him, for maximum enjoyment:
1. Don't pick Atlantis as an environment when fighting him for the first time. Its a GREAT environment...but it has a lot of potential to give him cards out of turn, and that can complicate things quite easily. Insula Primalis heightens the tension with damage boosting potential, and is a great way to ratchet up the tension (if thats what you are looking for). If you want Atlantis, be really careful about anticipating Krakens and be on your toes for the Pillar of Hercules at the WRONG time.
2. There are likely to be some painful turns when all seems lost! He's got some nasty tricks with his ships and forced deployment, and once he gets a swarm it can look pretty bleak. For me, this is where team synergy and cleverness really started to shine, and you got the most out of control characters, damage reducers, massive AoE, sacrifice plays, and clever ways to tank. You can absolutely pull a victory off, even when he's got an army!
3. Welcome to the Forum!
Okay, I think I'm going to go with Voss on the moon. Keep the theme solid.
Maybe as a second game I'll go with Advanced Ambuscade on Insula Primis. Great theme there.
Oh, and FYI, the core set villains have specific environments associated with them for thematic/story purposes. Let's see if I can remember these correctly:
I think you have Voss and Omnitron flipped.
Voss appears on the Villainous weaponry(?) card in the mars base and Omnitron's assault drones are the ones on impending casualty. Though honestly, megalopolis has a lot of villains appearing in it, so it might be hard to pin down that way.